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THE 



EXPOSITION 



VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY, 



H. T. COLEBROOKE, ESQ., F.R.S., 

&c. &c. &c. 

DIRECTOR OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN 

AND IRELAND, 

VINDICATED; 



Refutation of ctvuin ihiliUsfjctr Mtmarft* 



COLONEL VANS KENNEDY, 

PRESIDENT OF THE BOMBAY BRANCH OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



SIR GRAVES C. HAUGHTON, Knt. K.H., M.A., F.R.S 



ft 

&c. &c. &c. 



** Amicus enim Plato, amicus Socrates, sed magis arnica Veritas/ 



(Extracted from the Asiatic Journal for November 1835, and containing some 
Paragraphs and Notes omitted in that Journal for toant of room.) 



LONDON: 

I 

M.DCCC.XXXV. 






LONDON : 

Printed by J. L. Cox and Sons, 7o, Great Queen Street, 

Lincoln's-Inn Fields. 



INTRODUCTION, 



Controversy is always painful ; and would be worse than 
useless, if it did not lead to the removal of error, and even, occa- 
sionally, to the discovery of truth. As the writer believes that 
both these ends have, to a certain degree, been attained in the 
following remarks, he has had a few copies printed off separately 
for his private friends, as well as for the use of scholars. The 
limits assigned to such letters in a Journal caused a few paragraphs 
and notes to be omitted, which will be now found incorporated 
in the following pages, as the writer deemed their insertion neces- 
sary to complete his views of the various subjects of which he 
has treated. Had the Vedanta philosophy been the only point 
of consideration, it would hardly have been of sufficient impor- 
tance to have called for this separate impression ; but, as other 
topics of more general interest have arisen out of that question, 
it seemed to him advisable, particularly as it supplied the 
unavoidable omissions of his published letter, to put the whole 
in that form that might at once give them a chance of more 
general perusal, as well as of deliberate consideration. A few 
verbal inaccuracies that occurred in the hurry of its first publi- 
cation have been corrected. 

An Appendix has been added with the special view of eluci- 
dating the question of Cause and Effect ; as well as of demon- 
strating the absurdity of the celebrated ancient maxim, eoa 
niliilo, nihil Jit. 

London, 3d November, 1835. 



THE VEDANTA SYSTEM. 



Reply of Sir Graves Haughton to Colonel Vans Kennedy. 



Addressed to the Editor of the Asiatic Journal. 



Sir : — In the last number of your Journal, I find a letter addressed to you 
by Colonel Vans Kennedy, the object of which is to refute certain remarks of 
mine accompanying his paper on the Veddnta philosophy, published in the 
third volume of the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society. My first feel- 
ing was not to put forth anything in reply ; further consideration, however, led 
me to deviate from the course which I should otherwise be disposed to follow. 
I reflected, that silence might be construed into an admission that Colonel 
Kennedy's arguments were valid, and his assertions correct ; besides which, it 
appeared to me that justice to Mr. Colebrooke's reputation for accuracy, and 
to my own motives for defending him, with the respect due to those which 
influenced the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society in ordering my sentiments 
to be printed, rendered it almost imperative on me to draw up the remarks 
contained in this letter. Here, I feel myself taken at a disadvantage, from 
having been, for a long time past, in a state of health which unfits me for any 
literary exertion. 

With regret I perceive, that the observations, to which allusion has been 
made, were not accepted in a spirit resembling that which gave them utterance. 
I can appeal with confidence to my published remarks, and to the members 
who were present when I delivered them, that nothing was said, or indicated 
by tone or manner, which should have caused to Colonel Kennedy the slightest 
pain had he been even present. My observations were restricted to the expres- 
sion of my conviction, that Mr. Colebrooke had been misunderstood ; and 
that the Hindus really had a word in the Sanscrit language equivalent to mat- 
ter ; indeed, so much was my whole feeling opposed to anything calculated to 
give offence, that I spoke of Colonel Kennedy as an able and learned writer. 
Those sentiments were delivered on the impulse of the moment, and without 
premeditation, as the scope of his argument had been unknown to me, until 
the paper was read before the Society. It seemed a subject for regret that the 
meeting, which happened to be numerous, should carry away, at its separation, 
any impression unfavourable to Mr Colebrooke; for, recollections left on my 
mind by the perusal of his paper, some years before, satisfied me that he had 
been misunderstood. I was the more desirous of counteracting any misappre- 
hension on the subject, as Mr. Colebrooke was disabled by loss of sight and 
general infirmity from making any reply to Colonel Kennedy. 

The Council of the Royal Asiatic Society (I speak from some years' personal 
experience) has always been guided by motives of the strictest impartiality; 
and has invariably endeavoured to foster a spirit of research and investigation 
into whatever relates to the ancient or modern condition of the East ; and 
when it has made public any observations that seemed of themselves question- 
able, it has taken every pains that they should be so qualified as not to lead to 



2 The V6danta System. 

a hasty and an immature decision. Acting upon these principles, the Council 
referred some remarks made by Mr. Money, Secretary to the Bombay Branch of 
the Society, on an interpretation of a Greek inscription by the Baron Silvestre 
de Sacy, to that very eminent scholar himself; and his reply will be found at 
the end of Mr. Money's remarks, in the very same fasciculus of the Transactions 
containing Colonel Kennedy's essay. If the Baron's letter is made to follow 
Mr. Money's paper, whilst most of my remarks precede Colonel Kennedy's 
essay, the difference must be attributed solely to the unanimous conviction of 
those members of the Council, who were present when Colonel Kennedy's 
paper was ordered to be published, that his views were altogether erroneous, 
and that the attack on their venerable director required special notice. The 
publication, therefore, of Colonel's Kennedy's essay is, of itself, a decisive 
proof of the strict impartiality which regulates the proceedings of the Council 
of the Royal Asiatic Society. 

Guided by these considerations, the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society or- 
dered, what you had reported as spoken on the occasion, to be printed with 
Colonel Kennedy's paper. The ill-health of our Director rendered the secre- 
tary the only official organ of the society, and, while filling that office, my reply, 
consequently, proceeded no less from the necessity of performing its duties 
than from admiration of Mr. Colebrooke's rare talents, mingled with sympathy 
for his sufferings, which did not allow him even to defend himself from a simple 
misconception. Though acting under the impulse of the moment, I felt that, 
in addressing a public assembly on one of the most abstruse points of Hindu 
metaphysics, — one in which few persons take an interest, and on which fewer 
still possess any definite notions, — it was desirable to put the argument in that 
form which would admit of general comprehension. The meeting at large 
understood that Mr. Colebrooke was represented by Colonel Kennedy to be in 
error, though but few possessed the requisite data in order to form a correct 
judgment on the points of difference. It was evident that the patience of the 
meeting was nearly exhausted in listening to the long extracts from the mystic 
metaphysicians of Germany, with which that essay concluded; and that the 
only chance left of rousing the attention of the members was to follow the 
homely recommendation given by that eminent physician and philosopher, 
Dr. Matthew Baillie, when assisting in a consultation with some of his pro- 
fessional brethren ; and I accordingly endeavoured to give my auditors " a 
mouthful of common sense." For this reason, I refrained from the use of 
technical terms, and scholastic forms of illustration. In accordance with 
this view, my reply was limited to the maintaining of two positions ; the first, 
that Mr. Colebrooke comprehended the sense of his author ; the second, that 
the Hindus had, contrary to Colonel Kennedy's opinion, a word for matter. 
What I said on the occasion was received with approbation, for all were gra- 
tified to find that their venerable director was in the right. Subsequently, when 
the Council of our Society determined that my sentiments should be prefixed to 
Colonel Kennedy's essay, it appeared requisite that something more special 
should be given regarding certain points, on which I had not thought proper 
to touch in addressing a public assembly ; and the last paragraph and note 
were therefore added. It was evidently necessary that these should be in 
keeping with the rest, so that the whole argument might preserve a popular 
form ; for I have always entertained the persuasion, that the strength of an 
argument consists in its own cogency, and not in an array of technical phrases, 
which can be understood only by the initiated (ew. 

Unwilling to rely on my own judgment, where the reputation of the Royal 



Reply of Sir Graves Haughton to Col. Vans Kennedy. 3 

Asiatic Society, as well as that of Mr. Colebrooke, was concerned, I referred 
the whole subject to the late Rammohun Roy. It will probably be conceded 
by all persons acquainted with such matters, that it would have been difficult 
to find a man more competent to pronounce an opinion on the question at 
issue than that gifted individual. 

Profoundly versed in the literature and philosophy of his own country, him- 
self an expounder in English of the Veddnta philosophy, both by a reference 
to the Vedas and the comments written to explain them, he was the very 
man to be considered as the ductor dubitantium. Rammohun Roy reiterated 
on this occasion his high admiration of Mr. Colebrooke's perfect acquaintance 
with Indian literature, which he had so often expressed in public* and private ; 
and declared his entire concurrence in the manner in which Mr. Colebrooke 
had described the Veddnta philosophy. He also gave his approval of my re- 
marks. To substantiate his opinion, he pointed out two passages in his own 
works, one of which fully supported Mr. Colebrooke's interpretation, " that, 
according to the Veddnta philosophy, God was not only the efficient but the 
material cause of the universe." Those passagesf were printed with my 
remarks, by way of corroboration : no allusion is, however, made to them 
by Colonel Kennedy. 

Having given this explanation of the causes that led to my remarks, and 
their subsequent publication by the order of the Council of the Society, I 
now proceed to adduce arguments in proof that Mr. Colebrooke has really 
been misapprehended by Colonel Kennedy. If I did not do so more explicitly 
before, the reason will appear in the foregoing statement, wherein the object 
of my published remarks has been shewn, and my conviction that all who 
took any interest in the subject could themselves refer to Mr. Colebrooke's 
own publications. 

It is known to every one acquainted with Indian literature, that Mr. Cole- 
brooke has given, in distinct publications, in the Asiatic Researches of Cal- 
cutta, and in the Transactions of our own Society, which he founded, and of 
which he accepted the office of director, some masterly translations of original 
works, and many admirable essays on the language, the literature, and the 
philosophy of the Hindus. In all these he had undertaken to be the expositor, 
and not the critic, of the works he brought before the public. Acting on this 
principle, he has seldom, by any expression, given his own opinion of his 
author. It will shortly be seen, however, that, by a fortunate departure from 
his usual reserve, he has left a record of his opinion of the Veddnta philoso- 
phy that removes all doubt as to his own conception of its nature; and, con- 
sequently, should it appear to be, as Colonel Kennedy asserts, a system of 
gross and material pantheism in the writings of Mr. Colebrooke, such an 
inference must be deduced from the expressions of its Indian interpreters, 
who are faithfully rendered by him. 

* The following is an extract from the report of the Anniversary Meeting of the Royal Asiatic 
Society, held on the 11th of May 1833, as given in the Asiatic Journal for July of that year :— " The 
Raja Rammohun Roy, in rising to propose the vote of thanks to Henry Thomas Colebrooke, Esq., 
director of the Society, said, that he could not allow himself to do so without stating his high opinion 
of Mr. Colebrooke's talents and character; he might, indeed, say, that he never knew any person who 
stood higher in his estimation than that venerable gentleman. It had long been the opinion of learned 
Hindus, the raja observed, that it was impossible for Europeans to acquire a profound and accurate 
knowledge of the Sanscrit language, and it was Mr. Colebrooke's translations of the Ddt/a Bhdga and the 
Mitdcshard, the two most esteemed commentaries on the Hindu law of inheritance, which first con- 
vinced him of the contrary, and proved to him that it was possible for Europeans to acquire a know- 
ledge of Sanscrit equally comprehensive and correct with the natives of India." 

t Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. iii. p. 413—414. 



4 The Vtddnta System. 

I shall now briefly reply to such of Colonel Kennedy's remarks as seem to 
require attention. 

Colonel Kennedy, in repeating his assertion that " the essay in question 
exhibits a system of the grossest pantheism," and in supporting it by extracts 
which he has given from Mr. Colebrooke's essay, overlooks what he ought to 
know, that a refutation had already been given of such an opinion by the quo- 
tation made from Rammohun Roy's Abridgment of the Veddnt, which leaves 
no doubt that the Veddntins themselves assert the Deity to be the efficient as 
well as the material cause of the universe. The consequence, therefore, that 
ensues, according to Colonel Kennedy, namely, that the Veddnta system is one 
of " gross materialism," must be referred to the Veddntins themselves. The 
imputation cannot in any way lie against Mr. Colebrooke, and, had Colonel 
Kennedy been more diligent, he would have found, that, in the instance where 
Mr. Colebrooke has departed from his usual reserve, he has expressed himself 
as follows: — " The latter {Uttara Mimdnsd), commonly called Veddnta, and 
attributed to Vyasa, deduces, from the text of the Indian scriptures, a 
refined psychology, which goes to a denial of a material world."* He ought 
not likewise to have founded a new chargef of inconsistency upon an objection 
already unanswerably refuted. If there be inconsistency, it must be referred 
to the native commentators, from whom the passages are drawn, and not to 
Mr. Colebrooke. 

Colonel Kennedy has adduced a few passages from the comments of Sankara 
and the Sutras of Vyasa, where the word mdyd is employed, and he thence 
infers that the doctrine of mere illusion, which is so much insisted upon in 
modern expositions of the Veddnta system (both written and oral), is the true 
and ancient one, contrary to the declaration of Mr. Colebrooke. That, how- 
ever, this is a misconception on the part of Colonel Kennedy, will, I think, 
appear quite evident from the following considerations. In those ancient 
Sutras or memorial verses, and in Sankara's comment upon them, the Deity, 
or Brahm, is represented as the sole source of every thing. Individuality is 
denied to all other existing things. All the phenomena of physical nature 
result merely from the exertion of his energy (sakti), likewise called nature 
(prahiti), and illusion {mdyd). This energy, nature, or illusion, is to be con- 
sidered as unreal, because there is nothing but Brahm; and it is real, inas- 
much as it is the cause of every thing we behold about us. 

These words, therefore, so restricted, are not to be taken in the sense they 
are employed in dictionaries or other systems. Energy, nature, or illusion, is 
further qualified by being called unborn (ajd), and it is also termed ignorance 
(avid.yd%), when visible nature is taken for a real essence by minds unen- 
lightened by divine knowledge. Energy, nature, or illusion, therefore, cannot 
be said to be anything essential, but it is something actual. Hence, these three 
words are not the terms for a power, a state, or an abstraction personified by 
the abuse of language, but are intended to intimate something certainly that 
never before entered the head of any other than a Hindu philosopher, and 
which, for want of a better term, we must call an actuality, that is, some- 
thing possessing potentiality, but destitute of essentiality, and busily employed 
in presenting to the Deity, while he is in calm repose, all the phenomena de- 
pendent upon sensation, thought, and the contemplation of the visible world, 
and causing him to behold himself diversified into an infinite but fallacious 

* Trans. Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 19. t Vide Col. Kennedy's letter, p. 98. 

£ As these five terras are quoted by Colonel Kennedy himself, I have been particular in their expla- 
nation. 



Reply of Sir Graves Haughton to Col. Vans Kennedy. 5 

individuality. Such is the ancient doctrine. How different is this from that 
which it has been represented by modern writers, when the Deity is summa- 
rily described as the cause of all things, and all appearances to be mere juggle 
and illusion ! In this last sense, the word " illusion " is only employed to 
represent an abstract idea. It is true that mdya, in its common acceptation, 
implies illusion; but it has been shewn that it is not the only term employed 
to express this something which the Veddntins consider as indescribable, but is 
employed, along with the words " energy " {sakti) and " nature " (prakriti), to 
modify their meaning. Maya is not to be considered as illusion, but as that 
sort of self-induced hypostasis of the Deity, by which he presents to himself 
the whole of animate and inanimate nature. Energy, nature, or illusion, is, 
therefore, that self-induced condition, which, according to the Vedantins, arises 
in the Deity when he wills to diversify himself, and says, " I may become 
many." Hence, the object of all divine knowledge, according to the Vedan- 
tins, is to overcome the illusion produced by the consciousness of individua- 
lity; and to arrive at the great conviction that individual soul and the Deity 
are not distinct; and that man, discovering his divine origin, which had been 
hid from him by energy, nature, or illusion, may become certain that " I am 
Brahm." 

Dr. J. Taylor, in his appendix to the Prabod'h Chandro' daya, which contains 
a tolerably fair account of the Veddnta philosophy, but in which he has blended 
the ancient and modern doctrines, felt the full difficulty of interpreting the 
sense of mdya ; he, accordingly, calls it " motion ;" and, in his note, "nega- 
tion " and '"' falsehood," as will be seen in the following extracts : 

" The question, how does desire or volition arise in this simple Being, forms 
the subject of many disputes ; and I believe that even the subtlety of Hindu 
metaphysics has not yet furnished a satisfactory reply. 

" The motion which results from this desire is denominated Maia, which 
signifies false, illusory, what has no real existence.* "In popular language, it 
denotes nature, or the principle from which sensible things proceed; and in 
mythology it is known under the names Saraswati, Parvati, &c, the consorts 
of Bramha, Siv, &c, and who are also considered the Sactis, or powers, of 
their respective lords. The motion which is thus excited is the immediate 
cause of creation. It is declared in the Ved, • that God as Maia creates the 
world.' " 

Two hundred years earlier, Henry Lord, a chaplain in the East-India Com- 
pany's Service, translated mdya, " passion or affection." 

Indeed, with all these facts before him, it is difficult to conceive how Colonel 
Kennedy could suppose that the word mdya implied mere illusion ; and I shall 
now quote from his own essay a passage which will shew that he himself did 
not take it in any such sense. He says : " But the Veddnticas at the same time 
maintain, as the preceding quotations will have fully shewn, that, though in a 
certain sense the production of worldly appearances may be ascribed to the 
Supreme Being, as they proceed from hisjiat, still he must not be considered 
as being the immediate cause of them. 

" The thus separating his energy from the Supreme Being, and giving to it 
an independent power, is certainly one of the most incomprehensible concep- 
tions that ever occurred to a philosopher ."f 

All these reasons should have made Colonel Vans Kennedy more cautious 

* " I am not quite certain as to the etymology of this word, but 1 am told that it has two meanings,— 
negation and falsehood." This account is termed, by C'fld. Kennedy, " succinct but correct."— Hindu 
Mythology, p. 156. 

t Trans. Royal Asiatic Society, vol. iii. p. 410- 



6 The V6ddnta System. 

in censuring a scholar of Mr. Colebrooke's known accuracy; and he should 
have given that gentleman the benefit of the reasonable interpretation which 
he has claimed for himself, in the following passage, extracted from his letter : 
" I farther remarked, that, in reading Vedanta works, the utmost care should 
be taken not to be misled by the language in which its doctrine is expressed, 
or by the illustrations adduced in its explanation ; for, otherwise, it would 
appear to be a system of pure materialism, notwithstanding the clearest texts 
to the contrary. These observations surely deserved some attention, before 
Sir G. C. Haughton undertook to shew that I had mistaken the view given of 
the Vedanta system in Mr. Colebrooke's essay ; for I doubt much whether Sir 
G. C. Haughton has himself been able to form a clear conception of the subject 
discussed in that essay."f 

It must be, indeed, clear from all that has been said, that such a system, if 
it be even perfectly comprehensible, cannot be represented by language, but 
must be inferred by the mind from the principles already laid down. The 
Veddntins themselves have felt the full force of the difficulty, as will be seen 
from the following extract from Dr. Taylor's work : — " It (mayo) is sometimes, 
however, represented as having a reai existence ; but this means only that it 
exists as motion or energy, and not as Being. This will explain the ambiguous 
terms by which it is expressed in several parts of the translations, as where it 
is affirmed that Maia is neither true nor false. It is not true, because it has 
no essence ; and it is not false, because it exists as the power of the universal 
Being." 

Even if we select the term mdyd as the only true representative of this sys- 
tem, still it must be felt, after all that has been said, that it is not intended to 
mean ' illusion,' but that which raises illusive appearances in our minds. It 
has the same relation to illusion, that a type has to its impressions, a sub- 
stance to its shadow, and a panorama to the effects it produces on the mind of 
the spectator. In some points, mdyd bears a resemblance to the noumenon > 
that is the cause of phenomena, in the philosophy of Kant, and which he 
invented to obviate the popular objection to the system of Berkeley, who made 
spirits and ideas the sum of all things. The Vedanta system represents the 
Deity covering himself with nature (mdyd), as with a mask, for his amusement ; 
and if the spiritual nature of the doctrine be borne in mind, it is not very 
much misrepresented by Pope, when, speaking of the Universe, he says : — 

" Whose body Nature is, and God the soul." 

All that has been said will shew that Mr. Colebrooke was right ; and, that 
your readers may feel fully assured that in the preceding remarks I have not 
slurred the questions at issue, I reprint, even at the expense of prolixity, Col. 
Kennedy's charge against Mr. Colebrooke and myself: — 

" For it is evident that the late secretary did not even understand the ques- 
tion in dispute between Mr. Colebrooke and myself, as it was to this quotation 
from Mr. Colebrooke's Essay on the Vedanta system that the secretary's re- 
marks referred : ' The notion that the versatile world is an illusion {mdyd) ; that 
all which passes to the apprehension of the waking individual is but a phantasy 
presented to his imagination, and every seeming thing is unreal and all is visio- 
nary, does not appear to be the text of the Vedanta. I have remarked nothing 
that countenances it in the Sutras of Vyasa, nor in the gloss of Sankara, but 
much concerning it in the minor commentaries and elementary treatises. 1 The 
words in italics will shew that it was quite unnecessary for Sir G. C. Haugh- 

* Asiatic Journal, vol. xviii. p. 98. 



Reply of Sir Graves Haughton to Col. Vans Kennedy. 7 

ton to remark, ' I am not aware that Mr. Colebrooke has asserted, or ever 
meant to imply, that the basis of the Vedanta philosophy is material ; although 
he certainly has said that the term mdya, or illusion, which is now so com- 
monly employed by the followers of this school, is not favoured by a reference 
to the early commentators. It is, indeed, impossible to suppose that Mr. 
Colebrooke, the most profound expositor of the doctrines of the Hindu meta- 
physicians that Europe has yet produced, could have entertained such a sin- 
gular opinion ; an opinion that would be contrary to that of almost every boy 
in India.' For, in the very passage quoted, Mr. Colebrooke expressly men- 
tions, that he was acquainted with the Vedanta system in its modern state; 
and the object, therefore, of my paper was to evince that a belief in mdya was 
the ancient and original doctrine of the Veddntikas, and that this was sup- 
ported, not only by the Sutras of Vyasa and the gloss of Shankara, but also 
by the Vedas and Upanishads. This was a simple fact, which could only be 
disproved by its being shewn that the texts, to which I referred, were spurious 
or non-existent, or that I had misunderstood their meaning. Whether Mr. 
Colebrooke considered this system to be spiritual or material, was not the 
question ; but whether the view which he had given of it in that essay, was 
consonant to the tenets and writings of the Veddntikas. This I denied, and 
Sir G. C. Haughton, instead of meeting my objections, has entered into obser- 
vations which are quite irrelevant to the subject."* 

Colonel Kennedy, it will be seen, has quite forgotten that he did charge 
Mr. Colebrooke with representing the Vedanta philosophy as material ;f and 
that, therefore, it was part and parcel of the question ; and consequently I 
did not " enter into observations which are quite irrelevant to the subject," 
in defending Mr. Colebrooke from such a misrepresentation. What I have 
said will prove that Colonel Kennedy, in confounding cause and effect, has 
" misunderstood the meaning of his texts," and that, too, by adopting the very 
errors which it was Mr. Colebrooke' s object to discountenance; for, to fix the 
whole weight of the argument upon the sense of Maya, is, manifestly, to mis- 
represent the ancient doctrine of the Vedanta system, as sakti, or prakritl, singly 
or conjointly, do equally well represent what is intended by the Veddntins. 

Colonel Kennedy, in quoting the foregoing passage from Mr. Colebrooke, 
ought not to have omitted the sentence which immediately followed it, namely : 
— " I take it (the notion that the versatile world is an illusion {mdya), &c.) to be 
no tenet of the original Veddntin philosophy, but of another branch, from which 
later writers have borrowed it, and have intermixed and confounded the two 
systems. The doctrine of the early Vedanta is complete and consistent, with- 
out this graft of a later growth." f 

Professor Wilson, the highest authority we have on the subject after Mr. 
Colebrooke, expresses himself to the same effect, in a letter I have received 
from him since the foregoing remarks were written, although he had not the 
most remote intimation of my line of argument. That gentleman expresses 
himself thus : — 

" It is no doubt difficult, it may be impossible, to reconcile the notion of the 
origin of material substance from a purely spiritual source; and the language 

* See Colonel Kennedy's letter, p. 95. f Trans. Royal Asiatic Society, vol. iii. p. 420—21. 

% Mr. Colebrooke's Essays have been translated into French by M. Pauthier, and illustrated with 
valuable Notes, in which he has shewn with much ability and erudition the points in which the Indian 
and Greek philosophers agree. His work is published in a small and convenient form, with an excel- 
lent index, and is entitled " Essais sur la Philosophic des Hindous." The learned Professor Frank, of 
Munich, sent me, about a year ago, an elaborate essay, to confirm Mr. Colebrooke's views, but I have 
made no useof it, as I did not know whether to consider it a private or public document. 



8 The Vedania System. 

in which the process is illustrated attaches a degree of materiality to the 
latter. It was from a sense of this dilemma, probably, that the later Ve- 
ddntis invented the doctrine of mdyd or illusion, — a doctrine which, as far as I 
have observed, is not familiar to what may be considered the oldest authori- 
ties." 

My remarks have extended to so great a length in refuting what appeared to 
me the most important topics of difference, that I must dismiss the others in 
a more brief, but, I trust, not less satisfactory manner. Colonel Kennedy had 
stated in his essay, and has repeated it in his letter, that the Hindus had no 
word for matter. It will be sufficiently obvious that it would have amounted 
to an impossibility if some of the subtlest metaphysicians the world has ever 
produced, have been reasoning for the last three thousand years upon 
the nature of things, without having a term for this prime constituent of 
nature. 

Previously to making any remarks on the word mattery I must quote Colonel 
Kennedy's own words : — " The late secretary's remarks, with respect to the 
word matter ) are so unintelligible, that I must restrict my reply to them to 
the note, in which it is said that * mdtra is a feminine noun in Sanscrit, as 
materia is in Latin ; and both mean the substance of which things are made.' 
But it will be in vain to refer to Professor Wilson's or any other Sanscrit dic- 
tionary or vocabulary, to find such a meaning given to mdtra; and Sir G. C. 
Haughton has himself quoted this passage from the Institutes of Mdnu : ' with 
minute transformable atoms of the five elements, called mdtrds, &c.'# So 
that one of the five elementary atoms, the substance of which things are made, 
and matter, are terms which express the same idea. To make any remarks on 
such an extraordinary philological and metaphysical exposition, must be quite 
unnecessary. It is, however, on such grounds that Sir G. C. Haughton has 
controverted my observation, that there is no term in the Sanscrit language 
equivalent to the word matter." 

To this Colonel Kennedy has appended the following note: — " Mdtra is 
here used for tanmdtra, which signifies one of the five primeval atoms, from 
which the Hindus suppose that ether, air, fire, water, and earth, originated — 
otherwise, mdtra has no such meaning." 

Colonel Kennedy, in the foregoing remarks, seems to have overlooked the 
fact, that people must have a language before they can philosophize ; and that 
words must have had a primary, before they obtained a secondary, or induced, 
sense. This is the case with the word mdtrd, which must originally have 
meant an atom, and, in the plural, atoms ; for, Manu himself calls mdtrdk 
atoms ; and, if it be really the equivalent of tanmdtra, the invisible form or 
archetype of the five elements, then of what parts or portions are these last 
composed ? The five tanmdtras, indubitably meaning nothing more than the 
invisible forms or archetypes of matter, are no where employed by Manu ; but 
the term is always preferred by the commentators, in the sense I have assigned, 
in preference to mdtrd. Whether Manu, therefore, has employed the word 
mdtrdh, as meaning the invisible archetypes of the elements, or the atoms which 

* In justice to myself I must be allowed to quote the whole verse, instead of the garbled extract 
given here by Colonel Kennedy : it is as follows : — " With minute transformable atoms of the five ele- 
ments, called mdtrds, the whole of this (universe) comes into existence in due succession." Now it 
must be evident that, if this universe is made up of these mdtrds, they must constitute the substance 
of the universe. Whether the doctrine expounded in Manu makes the universe formal or real, has 
nothing to do with the question ; for, though it be formal, the same relation must hold between its 
parts as if it were real; and this consequence is fully laid down in Kulluka's comment on verse 27, 
book I., where he says, "from the minute comes the gross; and from the gross, the grosser, &c." 
This is in the passage which Colonel Kennedy says he could not find. 



Reply of Sir Graves Haughion to Col. Vans Kennedy. 9 

become visible by aggregation, and compose the five elements, must be deter- 
mined by the context alone. That, at all events, they constitute the substra- 
tum of form, cannot be doubted; for, in verse 19, of the same book, we 
have the expression " form-matras," which Kulllka explains by " minute 
portions or parts which constitute body." Logicians have always held, I 
believe, that form cannot exist without matter, nor matter without form; and 
if so, these mdtrds are really equivalent to matter. Every one acquainted with 
grammar must be aware that a noun, in the plural, signifies an aggregation, and 
is the equivalent of one, implying a class of things. Thus, fishes and fish, let- 
ters and literature, may be used indifferently. Now, in the passage in Manu, 
the word is in the plural, and not in the singular, as Colonel Kennedy sup- 
poses, by translating it u one of the five elementary atoms," its plural sign (h) 
having suffered elision for the sake of euphony ; and this is proved by 
its adjectives remaining in the plural, as well as from the whole context of 
the verse. This is a mistake that ought not to have been made by a tyro in 
the language, far less by one who undertook to criticise the most exact scholar 
of his age. 

Every one conversant with these subjects must know, that, in philosophic 
language, substance, body, and matter, mean all one and the same thing ; and, 
as such, are opposed to spirit. Yet, inconsistently enough, only a few 
lines afterwards, Colonel Kennedy repeats, what he had previously said in 
his essay : " Gautama and Kanada hold, that substance is an aggregation of 
atoms." 

But, as he has appealed to Professor Wilson's Sanscrit dictionary, it is with 
much pleasure that I subjoin* all the senses given to matra and tanmdtra by 
that eminent scholar in his erudite work. 

I will now demonstrate that matra and materia are really connected ; but, 
previously, I will remark, that materia is related to matra by nearly the same 
analogy as the Latin patera, * a goblet,' is to the Sanscrit, pdtra, ' a drinking 
vessel,' derived from the root pa, ' drink.' The Sanscrit language, as the most 
perfect branch, or the great trunk, of the Greek, the Latin, and Teutonic 
languages, removes a difficulty that, without its aid, could never be solved. 
Thus, the meanings of this word, given in Professor Wilson's Dictionary, will 
explain the senses it bears in the foregoing languages. Mdtram makes in Greek 
ftsT^ov; in Latin, materia ; in English, it is still preserved in the word mother, 
implying the feculent matter that forms in sour beer, or vinegar; and so true are 
these languages, in their parallel deviations from their original etymons, that 
we find the Sanscrit mdtri giving birth to the Greek fMjrijgj the Latin mater ; 
and the English mother. A reference to Dr. W T ebster's Dictionary will shew 
how much he is perplexed to ascertain the cause of the radical difference in 
sense between the two sets of words, which he finds in nearly all the languages 
of Teutonic origin. 

I must, however, go even beyond this refutation, and inform your readers 
of what they might reasonably have expected, namely, that the Sanscrit lan- 
guage contains many words for matter. Take the following as examples : — 

* " Matram, neuter. The whole, the entire thing or class of things, (adv.) Only, solely (exclusive 
and identical, the very thing). The primitive subtle or invisible type of visible elementary matter. A 
pleonastic addition to words. Matra, fem. Requisite, material. Quantity, measure. A little. An 
ear-ring. Wealth, substance. A short vowel. A moment. Quantity in metre or prosody, a syllabic 
foot. The upper or horizontal limb of the Hagari characters." Even the derivative tanmatra, as it 
willbeseen, lends him no assistance:— " Tanmatra m, neuter. Thearchetype or subtile rudiment of 
elementary matter." The root of both these words is md, " measure." Tram, like the (.reek Tfo* t 
is added to roots to form nouns implying instruments. Matra, therefore, means a measure (of space) 
i.e. matter. 

C 



10 The VSddnta System. 

vastu, vasu, dravya, sarira, murtti, tattwa, paddrtha, pradhdna, mUa-praltriti ; 
and, with the Jainas, pudgala. 

What I have here said will, perhaps, be considered a sufficient reply to the 
following remark made by Colonel Kennedy :— " To evince, therefore, that this 
opinion was erroneous, Sir G. C. Haughton ought, if he could, to have shewn 
that those definitions, or some one of them, applied to the opinions respecting 
matter, which have been entertained by the philosophers of Europe ; or he 
ought to have produced a Sanscrit term, which conveyed precisely or nearly 
the same idea as the words matter, materia, vhvi, and not to have contented 
himself with a mere similarity of sound between mdtra and materia, when the 
real significations of those words were so entirely dissimilar."* 

Since the remarks that precede and follow have been written, it has occurred 
to me that the whole subject, whether as it regards the fallacy of Colonel Ken- 
nedy's assertion, my own objection to it, or the nature of the doctrine con- 
tained in the Institutes of Manu, might all be put in one line, that would enable 
every one to judge for himself. The following line, therefore, contains, accord- 
ing to that system of evolution or emanation, the order in which all things were 
evolved by the Deity at Creation, viz.: — 

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 

God. Mind. Consciousness. Matras. Elements: 

That is, God first produced mind, which then generated the conscious princi- 
ple; this last the Mdtrds, and these the five elements, i. e. ether, air, fire, water, 
and earth. Now, any one conversant with such topics will see at a glance that 
the Mdtrds must represent the invisible types of the visible atoms which com- 
pose the elements; and that these therefore, in the aggregate, are the crude 
stuff intended by the Greek vM, the Latin materia, and the English matter. 

Colonel Kennedy finds fault that, when I alluded to nature, I did not appeal 
to Cicero, or some other great authority, on the subject. The fact is, that, 
being aware of the vague manner in which that word is employed, and knowing 
that it means anything and every thing, and, therefore, nothing, I put the 
argument in that form which would make the definition complete ; and said, 
that nature must be either a dependent or an absolute existence. In referring 
to this, however, he finds it not right by only considering one member of the 
position ; yet this comprehensive mode of embracing a subject is mentioned 
with applause by Lord Brougham, in his Discourse of Natural Theology, page 
93, in quoting Cudworth, as follows : — " Whatsoever is, or hath any kind of 
entity, doth either subsist by itself, or else is an attribute, affection, or mode 
of something that doth subsist by itself." Certainly, I did not take this from 
Cudworth, but we both borrowed from the same source, namely, common sense, 
and two thousand years before Cudworth was born, he was anticipated in such 
forms by Aristotle, when he laid it down that " being is either by itself or by 
accident. "f 

In my remarks, I had said that there was not onej of the six schools that 

* Asiatic Journal for October. | Enfield's Hist. Philos. Vol. I. p. 282. 

X When I uttered this opinion, I did not so much consider the declarations of the Hindu metaphy- 
sicians, as the consequences to be deduced from them. Thus, in the atheistic Sdrikhya, matter is said 
to be eternal ; but the consummation of that philosophy is, that the percipient shall discover the great 
truth that " neither I am, nor is aught mine, nor I exist," (Karika, 64.) Now, it is clear that if the 
percipient does not exist, that which he has discovered through his percipiency, namely, matter, cannot 
rationally be said to have any existence; and, therefore, cannot be essentially material. Besides, the 
atheistic Sdnkhya represents all things as springing by evolution from nature or maiter (pradhdna), thus 
making a double basis, one real the other formal. This inconsistency would lead to a strong suspicion 
that the atheistic is, as might be expected, subsequent to the theistic branch, which represents the 
Deity as the source of matter and soul. Such a conclusion is inevitable, except we admit that pradhdna 
does not mean matter, but a plastic principle which has been substituted for omnipotent Deity. In all 

other 



Reply of Sir Graves Haughton to Col. Vans Kennedy. 1 1 

appeared to me to be essentially material. Colonel Kennedy, in consequence, 
objects to this, though it might be considered, in some sort, as a concession to 
himself, when he said there was no word for matter. I need scarcely point 
out, that Col. Kennedy here places himself in a dilemma ; for, if I am right, 
he should not have brought the objection ; and, if I am wrong, as he argues 
in remarking upon it, he ought to be acquainted with the fundamental principle 
of the atheistic Sankhya system, which holds that matter is eternal ; and he 
thereby disproves his own assertion, that the Hindus have no word for matter. 
Nor is this the only inconvenience that attends Colonel Kennedy's being at 
variance with himself in the preceding remark ; for, in doing so, he has over- 
looked the fact that the Sankhya is divided into three branches, namely, the 
atheistic, theistic, and that of the Purdnas. The two latter do not maintain 
the eternity of matter. It is, therefore, strange that he should assert that 
"the Veddnta is the only one of those schools which acknowledges the exist- 
ence of God ;" and that the rest, though they admit the existence of God in 
terms, "inculcate pure materialism." (Here again is materialism without matter.) 
Nov/ the system expounded in Manu is the theistic Sankhya, and, therefore, 
is not pure materialism ; and we accordingly find in this work, which has 
nothing to do with the Veddnta, many sublime allusions to the Deity, of which 
the following is an example : — " He, whom the mind alone can perceive, whose 
essence eludes the external organs, who has no visible parts, who exists from 
eternity, even He, the soul of all beings, whom no being can comprehend, 
shone forth in person."* 

But this kind of inconsequence is not unfrequent in Colonel Kennedy's writ- 
ings, as will be proved by the following extracts taken from page 214, of his 
" Researches into the Nature and Affinity of Ancient and Hindu Mythology," 
where he admits the material tendency of the doctrine of the Vedas themselves. 
This work I had never looked into till it was pointed out to me by a friend, after 
this letter was written : — 

"With this spiritual system, therefore, a material generation of the world would 
seem to be incompatible; and yet in the Vedas, theUpanishads, and the Purans, 
the manner in which the process of creation is described most incontestably ad- 
mits the existence of matter, and of individuated substances." Again : "Though 
the system described (in the following remarks and quotations) is decidedly 
material, yet the Hindus believe that there is in reality no other entity than 
one, sole, self-existent, eternal and individual spirit." 

Colonel Kennedy says, that it is impossible to understand what I meant by 
remarking that, " an intellectual system supposes God is all ; a material, and 
therefore, pantheistic view, involves the idea that all is God." But he omits 
that which would have made the whole clear, viz. : — " The first has a spiri- 
tual ; the latter, a material basis:" and asserts, " that God is all, and all is 
God, must be considered as convertible terms." To shew, however, that the 
inference is not inevitable, I have only to remark, if the omission I have 
already supplied be not sufficient to make the matter clear, that, when it is said, 
in this popular mode of putting the argument, God is all, it embraces the whole 
of those systems that constitute the Deity the first cause and source of ever) 
thing ; but when it is asserted that all is God, eternal matter is assumed to be 
the origin of every thing, and all the beautiful order and harmony we observe 
in the universe, to be the mere result of an inherent energy and fitness. This 

other respects, the two systems are in perfect accordance with one another, with the exception of the 
irreconcilable dogma, "neither I am, nor is aught mink, nor I exist," which is only held In the 
atheistic branch. 
* Manu, Book I. v. 7. 



12 The Veddnta System. 

matter, energy, and fitness, must, therefore, in the imagination of those who 
hold such a doctrine, constitute deity. 

Much stress is laid by Colonel Kennedy on the doctrine of the Eleatic school, 
with regard to the ro h and to 7ra.v. I had made some remarks in my note on 
the to h of Parmenides, which are controverted by Colonel Kennedy; and 
to which I now reply in a a comprehensive way, premising merely that I am 
speaking in philosophical and not theological language. The Eleatic school, in 
defining God and Nature as to Iv and ro ttocv, were not apparently aware that 
both these terms are derived from sensible things. What is one, must in phi- 
losophic language be definite ; and so must the whole of anything. Now, to 
say that God, in such a sense, is one, or that Nature is all, is to take away 
infinity from both. Schelling, a philosopher of the modern German school, felt 
the force of the difficulty, and prefixed to the word unity, " absolute," and speaks 
of God as an absolute unity. But, if the Deity be incomprehensible and inscru- 
table, how is his nature made more comprehensible to the human mind by em- 
ploying a term which is equally incomprehensible? Is not this very like igno- 
tum pei- ignotius? The wisdom of ancient Egypt did not overlook the 
inconceivable difficulty of the question, when it gave, as the aphorism of 
its thrice-great Hermes, that the universe is a circle whose centre is every- 
where, and whose boundary is no where. All this must prove that the subject 
is too awful and unsearchable to be approached by the human mind; and thai 
the divine nature can never be discovered by the aid of philosophy. Every 
one who has reflected on the subject will feel with humility, that the plumb- 
line of human reasoning is too short to do more than reach the surface of that 
abyss, which we are all but too prone to attempt to fathom. Therefore, I 
feel I was right in saying, in my note, that " when we contrast the Deity with 
the gods of polytheism, we call him one : and we must do the same when we 
speak of him or his attributes in a theological sense, as the moral governor of 
the universe ; but the case is altogether different when we philosophize upon 
the nature of his essence in the abstract." 

It is worth while, however, to examine this new discovery of Schelling a lit- 
tle closer. The idea of one is purely relative, for it arises from the perception 
of the division of matter ; and so we say, one, two, three parts, &c. Our ideas 
on this point are therefore perfectly clear and defined. When, however, we 
transfer the notion from the forms of matter, the only thing of which the 
senses afford us any information, to that which is indefinite, namely, infinity, 
and which we only know by inference, it is certain we have fallen into a fal- 
lacy. We cannot in the least release ourselves from this embarrassment by 
tacking to it another word, such as absolute for instance, as the original 
materiality and numerical relation still remain. Even if we could, by an effort 
of imagination, contemplate one single thing to the exclusion of everything 
else, that thing would still be definite ; and as this idea supposes the existence 
of no other individual thing but the one contemplated, the relation of number 
could never have presented itself to the mind; and we should only have called 
that one thing by such a general term as thing, spot, figure, &c. But even 
admitting that we did call it one, and wished by language to shew that it was 
released from all comparison ; it would still, as the one thing contemplated, 
and therefore comprehended by mind, be definite. This must prove that the 
term absolute unity, as applied to the Divine Essence, is totally inapplicable. 
If mankind, therefore, from the effect of daily use, should receive this new 
term as one perfectly applicable to the divine nature, let no one smile if 
some future Schelling, some scion of transcendentalism, should go one step 



Reply of Sir Graves Haughton to Col. Vans Kennedy. 13 

further, and talk of an absolute half, an absolute quarter, &c. The term abso- 
lute unity is, it appears to me, altogether a fallacy, as an attempt to improve 
upon the word unity, which we must, from the constitution of our minds as 
individual beings, attribute to the divine nature, as often as we contemplate it 
in its agency, as the creator and ruler of all things; but neither unity nor abso- 
lute unity, can we with philosophic accuracy, attribute to the Divine Essence, 
or Godhead, which can be represented by no sign or symbol of human invention. 

It must be admitted of our worthy friends the Germans, with reference to 
metaphysics, that " they do (to parody the words of Shakespeare) speak an 
infinite deal of nothing ; — more than all other men in Europe." 

From allusions made by Colonel Kennedy, in the course of his letter, per- 
haps it is not out of place to say, that, having considerately examined all the 
systems of philosophy, ancient and modern, including those of India and China, 
I can assert, that there is not one of them that satisfies the understanding; 
nor is there one, if its principles and the consequences that inevitably flow 
from them be considered, that does not contradict itself and common sense. 
Take, for example, Berkeley's Treatise concerning the principles of Human 
Knowledge, which may be considered, perhaps, as one of the most perfect 
systems that have yet appeared: and of the arguments of which, Hume has 
truly said, that they admit of no answer, and produce no conviction. Yet, if 
according to Berkeley's principles, we reason away all our notions about the 
reality of space, &c, and agree with him that spirits and ideas constitute every 
thing, how shall we account for the locus in quo, which, according to the frame 
of our minds, we must require as a receptacle for such spirits and ideas ? So 
likewise the system of Kant makes phcenomena, or the things seen, to arise 
from noumenon, or what is known, which, when released from the juggle of 
grammatical forms, is as much as to say, that we know by seeing what we 
knew by knowing, or, in plain English, we know what we knew.* Afterwards, 
by converting this noumenon, a passive participle implying " what is known," 
into something that is the type of our ideas, he has by the help of realism, which 
he has carried to an unprecedented extent, and by the use of uncouth and 
obscure terms, framed a system so dark and complicated, that it has served to 
hood-wink most of his own countrymen, although it has been rejected, with one 
voice, by the unsophisticated sense of the rest of mankind. So it has already 
been shewn, that the Sdnkhya system is completely in opposition to itself in 
asserting the eternity of matter, and yet not allowing that which alone perceives 
it to have an existence. Again, the Veddnta system makes its sakti, prakriti, 
or mdyd (as being both real and unreal), to hold just a middle station between 
something and nothing; and, notwithstanding, it represents it as possessing 
agency ! Colonel Kennedy, however, considers this system " as one which 
has attained to the ne plus ultra of transcendentalism ;"f and as " the most 
spiritual system that ever was imagined by man."J 

The androgynous characteristic of male and female^ principles, which is at 
the bottom of all Hindu metaphysical systems, as well as the tendency of the 
language to personification and realism, || have given a bias to their philosophy 

* The system of Kant therefore, when sifted from its obscurity, amounts to the well-known opinion 
of Plato, that all knowledge is but reminiscence. 

t Trans. R.A.S. iii. 436. t Col. K.'s Letter, p. ««». § Vide Manu, Bk. I. v. :tt. 

|| The tendency which realism has to throw all fundamental ideas out of square, and thus to distort in 
proportion the inferences drawn from them, is not solely confined to the Hindus, but exists in the \ try 
nature of language, as a consequence of the limitation of our minds. The excellent work on logic by 
His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin, which has only lately fallen in his way, has made the writer awaie 
that attention is, to a slight degree, awakened to the subject ; but even the able writer of that work seems 
to have no suspicion of the magnitude of the evil, nor of the extent of the fallacies dependant upon it. 



]4 The Veddnia System. 

which could not be corrected even by the wonderful power and acuteness of 
their metaphysicians. But for the taint arising from these causes, the system 
contained in Man u would be almost perfect; and if its unfathomable anti- 
quity be also considered, it must be allowed to be the most extraordinary effort 
ever made by the mind of man. It is the undoubted prototype of every sub- 
sequent system of which we have any knowledge, whether we call them Hindu, 
Chinese, Egyptian, Persian, Chaldean, or European, which are all but distorted 
and mutilated copies of this one grand, simple, and original conception* 

The various inconsistencies, which beset all philosophic systems, must lead to 
one inevitable conclusion in every reflecting mind, namely, the high probability 
that one radical error is common to the whole of them. This error I conceive 
to be, the making of things sensible and tangible the standard of that which is 
neither sensible nor tangible : in short, the describing the infinite, by attributes 
drawn from the finite; — the making the known the measure of the unknown. 
Here philosophy has clearly gone beyond her depth. Of the essence or sub- 
stratum of things we can know nothing ; but of its forms we have just that degree 
of knowledge which is obtained by observation and inference. The essence 
must have infinitely less similarity to the form, than a trumpet has to its sound. 
The Divinity is the essence, and nature the form, of things. The human soul, 
as connected with both God and nature, derives its superiority from its affinity 
to the first, who is the Omnipotent Cause of all things ; and its limitation from 
the last, which is the mere combination of effects that are altogether relative. 
Every investigation regarding matter, space, time, motion, and power,f 
which may be considered as the fundamental constituents of nature, will verify 
this assertion. All these subjects, if pushed to their remote consequences, 
will be found to end in a contradiction. Thus, when we consider the nature 
of time, we feel that each minute can be divided into sixty seconds, each se- 
cond into sixty parts ; and we can, in imagination, proceed on, ad infinitum. 
But while I have been dictating this sentence, at least one minute has passed 
containing innumerable such infinities. So, any particle of matter may be 
equally subdivided in thought. Yet the inference derived from every such 
process is a contradiction to our nature. It is clear, therefore, that the shortest 
duration of time, and the smallest extent of matter, cognizable by the senses, are 
results purely relative, dependent for their exhibition upon the will of the Deity. 
Matter, space, time, &c, must, therefore, be merely the definite forms of an infi- 
nite and incomprehensible essence. The quick or slow succession of our ideas, 
and the magnitude of objects, are effects entirely dependent on the Divine plea- 

* Namely, what has already been given in one line; "God, mind, &c." The remarks above refer 
ro the metaphysical, and not to the theological parts of the system. The following is, I conceive, the 
number and chronological order of the Sdnkhya systems : —1° Manu (theistic) ; 2° Kapila (atheistic) ; 
3° Patanjali (mystotheistic) ; 4° Paurdnika (mythotheistic). 

t All those changes in the material world which stand in the relation of cause and effect, are the mere 
result of power as operating before or after, and constitute the sequence of nature. No sequence, there- 
fore, in the material world, has any thing to do with the relation of cause and effect that does not imply a 
transfer of power from the antecedent to the consequent. The, alternation of day and night must, therefore, 
be excluded from the relation of cause and effect. Power, consequently, whether under the direction of 
individual or general agency, is the medium of all those changes which we contemplate under the relation 
of cause and effect. In the moral world both sensations and reflections give rise to effects, and they 
equally stand in the relation of causes. The instances that may appear not to be included in the fore- 
going rule will be found to be merely figures of speech. Thus the two expressions " sin causes sorrow," 
and " the wound caused his death," when analyzed, mean nothing more than, " he who sins will be 
sorry," and " he was wounded and died ;" for "sin," "sorrow," " wound," and "death" axe abstract 
states, and not substances, which alone cat* be the medium of power. From these and similar instances, 
it may be laid down as a general rule that "whatever produces a change stands in the relation of a cause, 
and the change produced in that of an effect. But as source and product as well as agent and work, &c. 
have been generally confounded with the relation of cause and effect, the reader is referred to the 
Appendix for further elucid itio l of the subject. 



Reply of Sir Graves Haughton to Col. Vans Kennedy. 15 

sure ; and materialism must be here quite at fault if it attempt to solve the diffi- 
culty. If our ideas came ten thousand times quicker or slower than they do ; and 
if the bulk of objects were in the same ratio larger or smaller than they at pre- 
sent appear, the effect would be precisely the same to us as it now is, for the 
relation between them would still be the same. To such enigmas, otherwise 
inexplicable, and which are in contradiction to our senses, Dr. Watts alludes 
in the following passage: — " Our disputations about vacuum or space, incom- 
mensurable quantities, the infinite divisibility of matter, and eternal duration, 
will lead us to see the weakness of our nature." 

Matter, space, time, motion, and power, are those ultimate states beyond 
which the mind cannot pass. They are the impassable barriers which the 
Almighty has erected between himself and the valley of life. They are the 
bounds which he has set up, and which he has inscribed with characters 
equally legible to the illiterate and the lettered, — Thus fae shalt thou go, 

AND NO FARTHER. 

The legitimate object of philosophy, therefore, is to discover the sequence and 
relation by which the phenomena of nature are linked together; and, by care- 
ful comparison, to ascertain how far we can depend upon analogy, in antici- 
pating the constant return of the same sequence under similar circumstances. 
It is by this process alone that we can arrive at the discovery of truth, that is, 
of those laws by which the Deity sustains and governs the universe. 

I would not, however, be supposed to derogate from the importance of 
metaphysical studies :_ perhaps no others have stronger claims on human grati- 
tude, or serve more fully to unite man with the Author of his being; for with- 
out the assistance derived from them, he would be incapable of deducing the 
simplest inference. Metaphysics may indeed be truly considered as the head, 
physics as the body, and mathematics but as the legs and arms of science. It 
is only against the misdirection of such studies that I have raised my voice, 
as it is by the aid of metaphysics alone man can ascend the steps that lead to 
the summit of Nature; and they are only useless when he attempts, by their 
means, to dispel the clouds which veil Omnipotence from his view. 

These remarks acquire peculiar force from the present state of mathematical 
science ; — a state utterly in contradiction to that in which it was left by two of 
its greaetst benefactors, Newton and Leibnitz. Since the death of these two 
great men, science, by the powerful levers they left behind them, has con- 
quered difficulties that otherwise might have been considered insuperable to 
human effort. But it has sunk by the open rejection of metaphysics, that is, 
by the separation of the guide from the guided, — of the cripple from the blind 
man whom he directed, — into the contradictions of materialism,* not certainly 
in terms, nor by intention, in this country, but undoubtedly so in France, by 
placing its dependence solely on calculation and observation. The following 
passages by D'Alembert, extracted from his preliminary discourse prefixed to 
the celebrated Encyclopedic, will lend force to these sentiments : — 

" Newton was too great a philosopher not to perceive that metaphysics are 
the basis of all our knowledge, and that it is in them we must seek for clear 
and exact notions on every subject." And again : " The science of nature is 

* Once when La Place was invited to dine at the Tuilleriesby Napoleon, and was placed on his right 
hand in compliment to his talents, he was asked by the Emperor, what he thought of a superintending 
Providence. His reply is said to have been, that he demanded nothing more than la pesantew (gravita- 
tion) to regulate every thing ! Had this ablest of modern calculators but considered the operations of 
his own mind, and the order and harmony of organic nature, even had he put out of sight the incom- 
prehensible difficulties that beset the mechanism of the heavens, he would have had recourse to an 
omnipotent cause for their solution. Young had said, " The undevout astronomer is mad ;" and Paley 
has plausibly replied, that it was not the strongest argument that could be adduced. 



]6 The Veddnta System. 

no other than that of bodies : but, bodies having general properties which are 
common to them all, such as impenetrability, mobility, and extension, it is 
only by the study of those properties that the science of nature should com- 
mence: they have, so to speak, a side purely intellectual, by which they open 
an immense field to the speculations of the mind ; and a material and sensible 
side, by which they can be measured. Intellectual speculation belongs to gene- 
ral physics, which, properly speaking are nothing else than the metaphysics of 
bodies; and measurement is the object of mathematics, of which the divisions 
extend almost to infinity." 

The errors, that Colonel Kennedy has fallen into, seem to be the consequence 
of his not having sufficiently considered first principles; as well as to arise from 
the unlimited confidence he has placed in such clashing authorities as Cicero, 
Spinosa, Bayle, Brucker, Tiedemann, Fichte, Schelling, &c. Indeed, it appears 
to me, that in looking for assistance from those writers that have preceded us, 
we ought all to follow the sensible advice bequeathed to us by that truly pious 
man and great metaphysician, Father Malebranche, when speaking of Des- 
cartes, who then enjoyed as high a reputation* in France as Newton did after- 
wards in England. He says : — 

" But without relying on the opinion that we may have of these two philo- 
sophers (Aristotle and Descartes), and of all others, let us still look upon 
them as men, and let not the Aristotelians be displeased, if, after having 
walked so many ages in darkness, without being able to make any further 
advancement, we are willing to see with our own eyes, and if, after having 
been led like blind men, we now remember that we have eyes, and endeavour 
to conduct ourselves. 

" Let us then be fully convinced of this rule, never to give an entire assent 
but to t/iings that are evident. This is the most necessary of all rules in a 
search after truth, and let us not admit any thing into our minds as truth, but 
what appears with the evidence that this rule demands. We must be persuaded 
thereof, to lay by our prejudices, and it is absolutely necessary that we be 
delivered from our prepossessions to enter into the knowledge of truth, because 
the mind must be purified before it can be enlightened. Sapientia prima est 
stultitid caruisse"-f 

There still remains one point, which seems to me unaccountable. Colonel 
Kennedy says, that, though he has the work before him, he cannot verify 
my quotation of Mdnasa Srishti, in Kulluka's Comment, book I. verse 27- 
This is the more extraordinary, as the work, which was edited by Professor 
Wilson, is printed and numbered with all the regularity and order that belong 
to European typography. In justice to my own accuracy, I must say, that I find 
my quotation to be perfectly correct ; and that it exists in both the editions 
published in Calcutta. Any one, taking an interest in the subject, may refer to 
these works in the library of the Royal Asiatic Society. 

I now take leave of this controversy, and must request the indulgence of 
your readers for any inaccuracies of style which may be perceived in this 
letter ; for, owing to the state of my health and sight, the greater part of it 
has been dictated to an amanuensis, and from the same cause it may want that 
careful revision required in treating of so many topics. 

I remain, Sir, &c. &c, 

London, 20th October 1835. Graves C. Haughton. 

* " Such is at the present day the fate of this great man, that after having had innumerable fol- 
lowers, he is reduced to the state of requiring apologists." — Preliminary Disc, to the EncyclopMe by 
D'Alembert. 

t Malebranche's Search after Truth. Vol. i. book i. chapter 3. 



APPENDIX. 



Some Observations on the Hindu and European Notions of 
Cause and Effect. 

A careful consideration of what the Hindus have said on Cause and Effect 
makes it evident that they have fallen into the same error as the Greeks and 
modern writers on that subject ; and that they have blended the relation of 
cause and effect with the question of source and product, as well as with that 
of doer and deed, agent and act ; and that they have also used the word cause 
in the sense of efficient, maker, motive, reason, origin, fyc, as is done by our own 
metaphysicians. The Latin causa, the Greek ainc* and the Sanscrit hetu, 
are all simple terms, the verbal derivation of which is not now obvious, so 
that no means remain of defining their actual import by analysis, nor by any 
ulterior reference; but it will be seen in the course of the following remarks, 
that this cannot be assigned as the reason of the great obscurity and confusion 
in which the true meaning of these words is involved. 

Though mankind, by that discrimination with which they are commonly 
endowed, not only, generally speaking, use language correctly, but immediately 
feel the impropriety of anything that is contrary to its true analogies, yet there 
are very few indeed who could, even after some labour of thought, give any- 
thing like a rational solution of the nature of the words they have been employ- 
ing. Most people, if they were asked what they meant by the word cause, 
would fly to an illustration, and point to a thing of some kind as being a cause. 
But this would be an error; for the word cause implies the relation in which 
the thing stands, and not the thing itself. Cause, therefore, is merely a general 
term which the mind employs to mark one of the two relations in which any- 
thing may, under certain circumstances, be contemplated. A word that implies 
a relation, must, by its nature, have another that is invariably understood, and 
which is its correlative attendant : thus the term father implies that there is a 
child; husband, that there is a wife, &c. ; and by the same analogy, cause im- 
plies that there must be something else, which we call an effect : but the sense 
of the word thing is complete and absolute in itself, without the aid of any 
other word. Even Locke, when he defines cause as a substance exerting its 
power into act,\ has fallen into this mistake; for cause can never be a sub- 

* The Greek alria. is in all probability derived from the Sanscrit fidtu. The want of etymological 
significancy in these words is a proof of their great antiquity, and shews that they were of the first neces- 
sity, as is also clear from their import. The Sanscrit Jedrana, implying the malting to do, is evidently of 
much later use. 

t I have not been able to verify this quotation, which is taken from Johnson's Dictionary, where it is 
employed to elucidate the word cause ; but this is of very little consequence, as it is only neces 
refer to Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, Uk. II. Ch. XXXVI. § 2, "to see that it is sup- 
ported by his argument on Cause and Effect ; for he says there, a cause is that which makes any other 
thing either simple idea, substance or mode, begin to be ; and an effect is that which had it* beginning Jron% 
gome other thing. This definition, which applies very well to agent and result, does not contain any allu- 
sion to thejperception of relation, which alone constitute* that of cause and effect. 



Appendix. 

stance; but substance may stand in the relation of a cause which is to produce 
an effect. The definition is likewise incomplete, as it is inapplicable to the 
Deity, or first cause. 

These general distinctions have been premised for the purpose of leading the 
mind of the reader to the true consideration of this not unimportant question, 
as the fallacies of many of the ablest writers have derived their importance 
solely from the obscurity and confusion in which the import of the term cause 
has been involved. V\ e have just seen that substance cannot be a cause, but 
that it may stand in the relation of cause; that is, that the mind observing any 
series of changes or results, perceives that these follow one another in a 
sequence, and to the perception that one is prior to the other it gives the name 
of ' cause ;' seeing that they are related together by being one before and 
the other after, and contingent upon it. Therefore, till there was a mind 
to perceive the relation of events there could be no cause, as it is merely a mental 
distinction ; but this has nothing to do with agent, maker, efficient, or source, fov 
these must have had an existence whether there was a mind to perceive them 
or not. 

Having thus cleared away all other imports from the word cause, except that 
which really belongs to it, namely, a relation of something that is perceived to 
be prior to another relation that is called an effect, we must see that when it 
is employed for source, origin, reason, motive, efficient, agent, or maker, we are 
really talking about things with which it has no logical affinity. When we say, 
therefore, that God is the final cause of all things, we mean, though we express 
ourselves incorrectly, that he is the source or maker of all things. When again 
we talk of secondary causes, we must intend the subsidiary agents or means by 
which an effect is produced. By the same analogy, we cannot with propriety, 
speak of efficient and material causes; for the first means an agent capable of 
effecting anything, and the second a source from which something proceeds, and 
which can have nothing to do with the real meaning of cause, that is, the per- 
ception of relation between the doer and the deed, or the agent and the act. 

The importance of the foregoing distinctions and elucidations will be imme- 
diately felt when the application is made to the arguments of Kapila, and the 
other Sdnkhya philosophers. For when they assert* that effects exist in their 
causes, and that " what exists not, can by no operation of the cause be brought 
into existence," and elucidate their meaning by saying that the oil previously 
existed in the seed from which it was expressed, we must immediately see 
that by the word cause they intend a source from which a production proceeds, 
which is a mere truism ; for, undoubtedly, without a source there could be no 
production; but when they apply it to the Divine Source of all things, they 
beg the question ; for they might as well argue that, as every numerical series 
is composed of units, a unit must come from something else, which every one 
will allow would be nonsense. Now, to continue this illustration, it may be 
said that, just as the unit is the admitted starting post of numbers, so must the 
Deity be the source of all things ; and all productions, natural and artificial, 
proceed from his essence, as all multiples do from the unit. 

The whole of this confusion in the use of the term cause has arisen from the 
very nature of the human mind, which, deriving all its ideas of language from 
sensible objects, assimilates every thing to substance, and considers all abstrac- 
tions as realities. It is on this account that employing, as we do, such words as 
cause, from infancy upwards as something real, we never arrive at any idea of 

* Tram. R.A.S., vol. i. p. 38. 



, 



Appendix. 3 

their real import, but by close reflection. Now experience proves that this is 
an operation beyond any systematic effort of the generality of mankind ; and if 
the mind does even occasionally light upon the truth, it is only, as is exemplified 
in the electric flash, which gives a momentary gleam, to leave us at once in the 
obscurity in which it found us. Owing to this inveterate, and almost inevitable 
mental error, and to the consequent confusion of ideas, we have been led to the 
invention of a verb meaning to cause ; and we make use of such expressions as 
he caused him to fall. But as the verb to cause, in such senses, means to make 
to do, and therefore implies that he made him fall, it must express agency, and 
not mental relation; for when the phrase is properly expressed, it means, he, 
standing in the relation of cause, made him fall. This misuse of language is not 
of the least consequence in the common business of life, as it misleads no one; 
but it is of the highest importance when we reason about fundamental notions, 
as it then becomes the source of the worst errors of philosophy, deceiving those 
who are considered the infallible authorities of the rest of mankind ; and thereby 
rivetting the human mind in the fetters of their own mistakes. Such being the 
nature of language, we cannot hope, nor is it necessary to alter its course ; but 
it is incumbent on philosophers to bear its imperfections in mind, when they 
attempt to philosophize upon the nature of things, and to endeavour to prevent 
it from misleading themselves, as well as those for whom they write. 

It ma}', however, be objected by those who have not attended closely to 
the tenor of these observations, that cause and effect have always been regarded 
by philosophic writers as standing in a state of relation to one another ; and 
and that, as a proof, they always speak of " the relation of cause and effect." 
This is perfectly true ; but while they have so spoken, they have always argued 
as if cause were something real, instead of a mental perception. Indeed, they 
have converted it, by their mode of argumentation, into an entity, or rather a 
substantiality, possessing agency, and capable of producing effects ; and this is 
proved, not merely by the quotation from Locke, but likewise by the use of the 
verb to cause, implying to make to do ; and the noun of action, causation, signi- 
fying the act of making to do, which such writers employ on the same occasions 
with equal incorrectness. By a strange inconsistency arising from the deceptive 
character of language, they convert the relation of cause into an agent, and at 
the same time fancy they employ the verb to cause, and the noun causation, in 
a manner that only intends relation ! So inveterate are these errors in our 
way of thinking, owing to the nature of our minds, as well as of language, and 
of habit as the consequence of its employment, that it will require no ordinary 
effort in the reasoner who may attempt to liberate himself from their thraldom ; 
and an attentive perusal of the arguments that have been adduced on the 
nature of cause and effect, by any one who shall keep the foregoing distinction in 
view, will make him feel that those stately disquisitions that have been raised 
on the fallacy here exposed, are often but mere verbiage, vox ct prccicrcd nihil, 
or, at the best, but as the baseless fabric of a vision. The same kind of fallacy 
could with ease be shewn, on nearly similar grounds, to be the case with ail 
the arguments generally used about Nature and Necessity. 

The only chance of preventing the errors that have been pointed out from 
being committed by those who are not accustomed to analyze their own thoughts, 
is to remember, that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred in which the word 
cause is employed, it is involved in this fundamental error. They should there- 
fore always consider, when they adopt the term, whether they use it in any of 
the many senses that have been already pointed out, and if so, they should 
employ the specific word in its place; that is, if they intend to speak of an 



4 Appendix. 

origin, a motive, fyc, they should employ those words, and no other. With 
respect, too, to the verb to cause, and to the noun causation, these should never 
be employed in any case where the relation of cause and effect is intended j as 
they invariably imply agency, and not relation, and they consequently establish 
the very point of dispute in such cases, namely, the existence of a causer, agent, 
or doer, which being once admitted, the whole subject of debate falls to the 
ground. As a proof of the importance of the foregoing distinctions and obser- 
vations, a few remarks are here added that will at once illustrate and confirm 
their truth ; and for the purpose of pointing out the constancy of the fallacy 
about cause, whenever it is adopted by popular usage for an agent instead of a 
perception of relation, the word causer is made to follow it in brackets. Were 
the subject clearly and universally comprehended, it would save much chance 
of confusion if the word cause were always restricted to the sense of the rela- 
tion, and causer to that of the agent or efficient of a result. 

When the Hindu metaphysicians, after the enunciation of the rule, give the 
examples by which the exact import of the term may be inferred, we must see 
clearly that they sometimes employ the word cause as the efficient, effector, 
producer, agent, or maker, and sometimes as the source of production ; and 
often as the reason* or the motive, as well as the origin of anything, just as is 
done by the metaphysicians of Europe. 

When they say, therefore, that there is no distinction between cause and 
effect, and that effects exist in their causes, it is clear, from the example they 
give, namely, that the seed of sesamum is the cause of the oil, and that therefore 
the oil existed in its cause, which was the seed, they have palpably con- 
founded agent and source, and that the seed can neither be considered as stand- 
ing in the relation of cause, nor as an agent or causer. It is quite evident that 
the oil, as a product, must have existed in its source, which was the seed. So 
likewise, when they say the Deity is the efficient cause of the universe, they mean 
that he was the agent in producing it: and when they say he was also its mate- 
rial cause, they imply that he was the source from which it proceeded. Now 
when we assert that God made the world, we mean to say that he stands in the 
relation of its cause, that he is its source and its maker, which senses are all 
included in the one word, Creator ; and, by the same reason, the world is con- 
templated as an effect of his power, as the product of his essence, and the work 
of his agency. The Sdnkhya philosophers, therefore, in asserting that that 
which did not previously exist, could not by any effort of the cause (causer) be 
brought into existence, have, by separating the cause (causer) in this case from 
the source, made a petitio principii, and proved their own point by the form of 
the enunciation, for it will be evident that when we consider the cause (causer) 
we call first, we must not argue as we would about the cause (causer) we con- 
template as secondary ; as we cannot here separate cause (causer) and source, 
though we may do so afterwards, for we then know by observation, that they 
are distinct. Thus, to borrow a Hindu illustration, the potter is the cause (i. e. 
causer or maker) of the pot, but he is not the source of the earth of which it is 
formed. Sometimes, however, what we call a secondary cause (causer) must 
include the two distinctions; as when we say, the spider spins his web, of which 
he is at once the cause (causer) and the source, and consequently the web is a 
work and & product; and the spider stands in the relation of cause to the web, 
which is reciprocally in that of effect to him. But those who have been fami- 
liarised to the jargon of the schools, which has been current from Aristotle to 
the present time, will here, perhaps, fly from the real scope of this argument, 
which is to prove that cause and effect imply simply a perception of relation, 



Appendix. .' 

and will say that the oil existed potentially in the sesamum, just as the fruit 
existed potentially in the tree, and the tree in its seed, and the seed in the pre- 
ceding tree and seed, &c. But the fallacy of this argument, which has nothing 
to do with the present question, will be evident, by shewing that by a similar 
process of reasoning we might say that all the bullets cast in a mould existed 
potentially in the mould, as the lead poured in is only the equivalent of the 
nutriment taken in by the tree and seed. The potentiality which produced the 
bullets existed in the individual who made the mould and cast the bullets, and 
the potentiality of the individual exists only in God, who made and sustains 
him; and the same must be said of the tree and seed, which have their ex- 
istence from the Deity only, who is, therefore, the source of all power and of 
all existence. 

It may not, however, be without its use to carry this enquiry a few steps 
further, and to consider the unanswerable objection that attends upon mate- 
rialism, with regard to the doctrine of power. The atheist considers that 
power is inherent in matter, and inseparable from it; and that it is through its 
own energy that this universe, with all its wonderful variety, has arisen. 
Perhaps the best answer to the groundlessness of this assumption will be to 
consider the nature of the power with which the materialist endows matter, 
and this may be done in a few words. Power must be either something real 
or something ideal, that is, it is either concrete or abstract. In the case of a 
cannon ball the power passes from the gunpowder, by its explosion, into the 
ball. It is, therefore, clear that it is capable of augmentation and diminution ; 
and that it consequently can be transferred from one body to another. 
Power, therefore, it must be seen, is not an inherent and inseparable property 
of matter. But it may be replied, that by power is meant nothing that is 
transferable, but merely an inherent energy which is in matter, and which, by 
certain mechanical arrangements, enables one thing to give impulse to another. 
This last explanation implies that it is nothing real that is meant by power, 
but something ideal ; and to this last supposition, therefore, the remainder of 
the argument must be directed. Power and energy, if they do not mean 
something real, mean nothing at all, as they are mere abstract terms em- 
ployed by the mind for the convenience of reasoning; and the materialist, in 
using them without a material sense,* has really, in this instance, changed 
himself into an idealist, and is so inconclusive a reasoner as to admit of opera- 
tions that stand in the relation of effects, and yet to deny the existence of the 
indispensable thing which can alone produce what are to stand in the relation 
of causes. But as there may be some materialists that do not hold the doc- 
trine that power is inherent in matter, though they deny the existence of an 
All-wise Mind, rendering it the instrument of his will in producing the phe- 
nomena we witness around us, the following remarks are intended as an an- 
swer to such a supposition. 

Power being admitted to exist as a real something, it may be asked what it 
is that directs or guides it into the production of all the exquisite forms we 
see in nature ? Every individual has a certain degree of power at his com- 
mand; still, experience shows us that there must be a most felicitous combi- 
nation of circumstances, such as fine organization, years of instruction and 
application to a particular branch of study, before he (who is himself assumed 

* By the word materia!, it is meant that they imply something real, however subtle, and not an 

abstraction. 



6 Appendix. 

to be a mere production of chance!) is fitted to give even an ordinary and 
lifeless imitation of those graceful and beautiful objects, which, according to 
the supposition of the atheist, have arisen fortuitously, that is, without a 
directing mind. 

The power possessed by every individual is exhausted after a certain degree 
of effort ; and sleep and repose are both necessary for its renewal. We find 
that a watch will not go till it is wound up, that is, till a certain degree of 
power is communicated to it ; by what process, therefore, is it that the indi- 
vidual is, as it were, wound up, or renovated for new efforts? Repose and 
sleep, which are mere states of quiescence, could not do it; there must, conse- 
quently, have been some agent at work, which has, so to say, recharged him 
with power for the labours of the coming day. That agent the theist calls 
God ; the atheist terms it repose, a mere abstract term, and therefore devoid 
of reality. He has, consequently, assigned an effect without a cause (causer), 
merely from his ignorance of the nature of language. 

If it be argued that the power which had been exhausted by effort returns 
to the individual by the simple process of sleep, it will be only necessary to 
bear in mind that what has life must possess more power than that which is 
inanimate : consequently, if there was a transfer of power by the ordinary 
laws of nature, it would pass from that which is alive into that which is not : 
that is, if it tended to an equalization, it would quit and not enter the body. 
But so far is this from being the case, that we find that the body receives an 
increase of power during sleep. There remains, therefore, but one inference 
to be drawn from this fact, namely, that the power of the sleeping body has 
been replenished by some agency. Vital function could not be assigned as the 
reason, since function itself, as an action, must require an actor or agent for 
its production ; and it could, therefore, be only the medium by which the end 
was effected. 

But it may be said, that if the food was flesh, the power was transferred 
from it to the individual who ate it; and, though this must be true to a certain 
extent, as experience proves, still, at the best, it could be but the vehicle of the 
power, and cannot do away with the necessity of some agency by which the 
transfer was effected, and does not account for the means by which it entered 
the animal from whom the flesh was taken. It may, perhaps, be replied, that 
he got it from the herbage on which he fed ; but if so, whence did the herbage 
acquire it? Now all this shows, that in each step of the progression we must 
suppose a conscious and efficient, though invisible agency as the prime source 
of all these natural operations. These inextricable difficulties of atheism have 
evidently beset the human mind from the earliest periods of its investigations, 
as will be seen by the following extracts from the book of Job (xxxiii., 8, 9), 
one of the very earliest, as well as most sublime compositions that have come 
down to us from ancient times, where speaking of the agency of the Deity it 
is said : — 

" Behold, I go forward but he is not there, and backward, but I cannot perceive him : 
" On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him ; he hideth himself 
on the right hand, that I cannot see him." 

To sum up the inferences to be drawn from the preceding argument, it may 
be stated, that the definition of cause and effect is simply as follows. What- 
ever produces a change stands in the relation of a cause, and whatever change 
results from it, in that of an effect. This general proposition will meet every 



Appendix. 7 

case; but, as it may be often useful to consider the law in its threefold dis- 
tinction, it is here subjoined under its separate heads. 

Physical. 

I. In the material world, when power produces a result, the power stands in 
the relation of a cause, and whatever change results from its operation, in that 
of an effect. 

Mental. 

II. In the moral world, that which influences or affects the mind, is con- 
templated as standing in the relation of a cause, and whatever results from that 
influence, or affection, in that of an effect. 

Metaphorical. 

III. \x\ figurative language , whatever is supposed to produce a change, stands 
in the relation of a cause, and whatever is inferred to arise from it, in that of 
an effect. 

Every instance that may be adduced regarding cause and effect, which is not 
physical or mental, will be found to arise from the use of figurative language, 
which employs the same expressions as when the case concerns real power. 
Thus, in the phrase virtue is the cause of happiness, the expression is not 
merely metaphorical, but contains, metaphysically speaking, two errors. The 
first is, that cause, instead of implying the relation in which virtue stands to 
happiness, which is the effect, is employed to indicate an agent or causer pro- 
ducing a result. The second is, that virtue and happiness are used as if they 
were realities, and that the antecedent had the power of producing the con- 
sequent; though, from both words being mere abstract terms, power can 
neither be conferred by the one, nor received by the other. The sentiment, 
therefore, when released from its figurative and abstract character, merely 
implies, that the individual who acts virtuously will be happy. Sometimes, the 
two first kinds are blended, and a moral cause gives rise to a physical effect ; 
as when we say, " shame caused him to commit suicide ;" and for the same 
reason a physical cause produces a moral effect ; as in the expression, " the 
blow caused him to become angry." Those abstract states which logicians call 
accidents, are also treated as substances; as when we say, " heat causes flui- 
dity." In this instance, heat stands in the relation of cause, and fluidity in 
that of effect; it may, however, be doubted whether we can find an accident, 
standing in the relation of a cause, to effects that are physical or mental. 

The remarks which are now about to be offered to the reader's considera- 
tion, and to which his attention is requested, contain the real essence of this 
question, and they have been kept back for the purpose of preparing his mind 
for what would have been otherwise unintelligible or inconclusive. Passing 
over the error that has been pointed out, of cause being considered as a sub- 
stance instead of a relation, it is uniformly thought, that in a series of things 
acting upon one another the prior is the cause, and the subsequent the effect. 
Thus, in a series of balls put in motion by the billiard-player, the first ball is 
said to be the cause, and the next the effect to it, and the cause to the one it 
strikes, and so on, till the whole are put in movement. That this, however, 
is a fallacy, will be evident, if we remember that the first ball, which we call the 
cause, has only moved the second, and that, therefore, the effect it produced 
was the movement of the second. Now, if there were fifty balls, each sepa- 
rately moved by the one that preceded it, it might be said that there were fifty 
movements, though, in point of fact, we can only say that the fifty balls were 



8 Appendix 1 . 

moved. Having got thus far, let us consider that it was the movement of the 
first ball that made the second to change its place, and so communicated an 
impulse to the whole series. The moment we see this clearly, we must be 
convinced that it was not the first ball, but its movement, that moved the second; 
and that the movement of the second made the next change place, till the 
whole were urged forward in succession. In all this operation, we cannot fail 
to perceive that we have had fifty effects and not one cause ; for, otherwise, 
movement must be both cause and effect ; and, if we suppose it so, then we 
arrive at this conclusion, that movement stands in the relation of cause to 
movement, which it as much as to say, that movement can produce itself, or, 
in plain language, that change of place can produce change of place / To get at 
the cause (causer), therefore, we must go back to the billiard-player, who 
put the whole in movement. Now, it is evident that all the effects witnessed 
on this or any other occasion, are simply changes that evidence the passage of 
something that flits from the first to the last, and which, being propagated by 
the will of the agent or doer, forces the ball on till it is arrested in its progress 
by impinging on the next, which it moves in its turn. The something that 
operates in such changes mankind have agreed to call power, which, as long as 
we believe in the reality of the external world, is a real essence, capable, under 
direction, of effecting all the changes that arise from the will of individual be- 
ings, or the will of God. But as matter is seen to be passive, or at least may 
be considered so, from the uniformity of the law of gravitation, power is the 
sole means by which it is set in movement when it is once at rest; but as 
power is unequal to produce an effect, except under direction, it cannot, 
strictly speaking, be held to be a cause (causer), but must be merely Con- 
sidered as the medium by which the real cause (causer), that is, the Deity, 
carries on all the operations observed in nature. As all things in nature 
are but results dependant upon the Divine Will, we must, if we desire to be 
conclusive in our reasoning, admit that there is no real cause (causer) but 
God, who, in his character of Creator, forms and sustains all things, being both 
the origin and the agent in the production of the universe : it is he, therefore, 
as the source of causality, that stands in the relation of causa causarum to all 
things : for in him we live, and move, and have our being. 



Appendix. 



Of the Maxim « Eat Nihilo Nihil Jit:" 

The preceding remarks appear to the writer to be indispensable to the taking 
a rational view of the celebrated maxim ex nihilo nihil fit of the ancient Greek 
philosophers; for though some of the Hindu metaphysicians hold the doctrine 
that nothing comes from nothing, which cannot be disputed, and seems at first 
sight to be nearly the same opinion as that of the Greeks, yet it does, in fact, 
essentially differ from it, as the first merely implies that without a source there 
can be no product, but it has no reference to an agent or causer ; while the 
other means something more, by intimating that no agent could produce a 
work without having a source from which to elicit his production. The 
opinion of the Greeks, though essentially true in itself as regards any se* 
condary cause (causer) or agent, is utterly inapplicable to the Deity, as it 
assumes the fact that his work, that is, the universe, is distinct from his es- 
sence; and to prove the fallacy of such a supposition, it is only necessary to 
consider what would be the inevitable consequences of the eternal and absolute 
existence of matter, with a Deity separate and attempting to operate upon it ; 
and this may be done without taking into consideration the still greater diffi- 
culty, how either could, in that case, have had any claim to infinity. 

The absurdity of the maxim of the Greeks, which Hume justly characterizes 
as impious,* consists in supposing a being existing without a cause (causer), 
and therefore of himself, and yet unable to produce matter by his fiat. A 
Deity so inefficient as the maxim supposes him, must either have been pure 
spirit, or pure matter, or a compound of both. If we regard him as pure spirit, 
but unable to modify matter by h\s fiat, we must immediately admit that he 
could not have acted upon chaotic matter so as to give birth to the universe. So 
likewise if we suppose such a Deity to be pure matter, he must have remained 
like a statue, inert, powerless, and lifeless; and therefore incapable of creation. 
There remains, then, but the third supposition, namely, that he was a com- 
pound of both spirit and matter. But such a notion as the last implies a self- 
evident contradiction ; for as he existed of himself, without any extraneous 
cause, how could matter and spirit become blended in his person? If, the 
Deity being spirit had no power to modify matter by his fiat, how could 
he operate upon it so as to give it that form that was necessary to constitute 
the corporeity that united both natures in his own person, namely, spirit and 
matter ? But granting for a moment that such a union could have arisen by 
some sort of process or result incapable of being conceived by the human 
mind, he must still have been under the necessity of fashioning for himself in- 
struments with which to work, like a mere mechanic ; and even then it is im- 
possible to conceive how he could regulate the birth, maturity, and decay of 
universal nature. He could not himself have escaped the influence of gravi- 
tation, which we must, on the hypothesis of his origin, suppose to be an in- 
herent and indestructible property of matter. It is likewise evident that a 
being so constituted could have had no ubiquity; for, as he would be com- 
posed of matter, whatever place he occupied would exclude any planetary 
system, and he and his work could never have occupied the same part of 
space. He must have been either large or small. If large, all the heavenly 

* Essays, vol. II. Note Q. 



] Appendix. 

orbs must, by the power of gravitation, have clustered round him, just as bar- 
nacles attach themselves round a wreck at sea ; and merely added to his mass. 
If small, he could have had scarcely any influence upon any object larger than 
himself; and he must have fallen in by the same force upon what he never 
could have formed. In short, the difficulties and absurdities attendant upon 
the supposition of the independent and absolute existence of matter are too 
many to admit of its being entertained by any reflecting mind that has given 
the subject a moment of due consideration. 

The sum of the argument amounts to this, that whether we divide or mul- 
tiply matter ad infinitum, we arrive at a contradiction to common sense; and 
we have but one conclusion left us from the incomprehensible nature of the 
subject, namely, that every thing we see, and feel, and think about, are but 
results presented to us by Divine Omnipotence and Wisdom, for reasons which 
it would be folly in us to attempt to scan. 



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